On Sept. 20, 1987, Pope John Paul II landed in Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories, to keep a promise he had made three years earlier: to meet the Dene and other Indigenous peoples of Canada in their own homeland, according to the Vatican’s own published record of the visit and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB).
The promise dated back to September 1984, when the Pope made his first cross-Canada visit, a 12-day tour that took him from Quebec City to Vancouver, according to the CCCB. Fort Simpson was meant to be a stop on that itinerary at the invitation of the Dene Nation and four national Indigenous organizations, who wanted the Pope to visit them rather than address them from the territorial capital, Yellowknife. More than 3,000 people gathered on the banks of the Mackenzie River to wait for him, CBC News reported. Thick fog rolled in, the papal aircraft was unable to land, and the plane was diverted to Yellowknife instead. Chief Jim Antoine of the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation, who had helped lead the invitation, watched the visit collapse in front of a crowd that had travelled from across the North. The Pope promised he would come back.
He kept that promise on this date in 1987, extending a separate trip to the United States by an extra day so he could complete the visit he had been forced to abandon, the CCCB says. According to CBC News, he opened his remarks to the crowd with the words, “At last, God has brought us together!” The Northwest Territories’ historical timeline project, nwttimeline.ca, reports that he blessed what it called the things sacred to the Dene: the land, the water and the air, and that he urged the Canadian government to settle Indigenous land claims and become, in his words, a model for the world.
In his formal address, published in full on the Vatican’s website, John Paul II told the assembled Indigenous leaders and residents that “I affirm the right to a just and equitable measure of self-government, along with a land base and adequate resources necessary for developing a viable economy for present and future generations.” He also met privately that day with leaders of four national Indigenous organizations, the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, the Metis National Council and the Native Council of Canada, before celebrating Sunday Mass, the CCCB says.
The five-hour visit left a lasting mark on the community. Chief Antoine later told CBC News the trip “brought more awareness to Indigenous people and their struggle here in Canada” and helped raise the national profile of Indigenous land and governance issues. A small Vatican flag flown at the Fort Simpson airport that day was handed to Phil Bowes, a local civil servant, and sat in a basement trunk for more than 30 years before being rediscovered in 2019. It was returned to Fort Simpson, where it is now displayed at the visitor information centre alongside the chair the Pope used and photographs from the day, according to CBC News.
The 1987 Fort Simpson visit is little remembered outside the North today, overshadowed in most retrospectives by John Paul II’s larger stops in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver three years earlier. But for the community that waited twice, once in the fog of 1984 and again in 1987, it stands as a rare instance of a global figure making good on a promise to return.
Sources: The Vatican, official text of the Sept. 20, 1987 address to the Indigenous peoples of Canada; Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops; CBC News; nwttimeline.ca (Northwest Territories historical timeline).
